"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

End the Silence: Stand with Women in Cuba for Their Rights

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) examined Cuba today during its 55th session
at the Palais des Nations in Conference Room XVI in Geneva,
Switzerland. There was no mention, not even a question raised, of the Cuban government's agents
engaging and organizing others in a systematic pattern of death threats, assaults, and rape threats against Cuban women in order to silence their dissent. Women in Cuba have been and continue to be imprisoned, badlybeaten, mutilated, threatened with rape and extra-judicially executed by a government that some claim is pro-women in order to deny them their fundamental human rights. How can this be going on and CEDAW not mention it?

Yaremis Flores and Laritza Diversent presented report to CEDAW

There was one ray of light amidst the depressing news and that was that two dissident Cuban attorneys Yaremis Flores and Laritza Diversent presented their report to CEDAW that touches on the institutional violence against women, and this is now part of the official record:

The brutalityof the policeandstate security agents, including women members of these bodies, against womendissidents, is supported by thestate, whichexemplifies theinstitutionalized violenceas a meansto represswomen opposition activists. Arbitrary detentionis one of themethods toprevent them from exercisingtheir rightsto speak, associate anddemonstrate.Indetention centersagents useviolence,sexualassault andinsultsas means ofrepression.Thecellsenclosed inunsanitaryand sometimes sanitary serviceshave no privacy orarenotappropriate for women, even having them share prison cellswith men. In some cases,they forcedto stripnakedorforcibly stripped,obliging them tosquat tosee if they haveitemsin theirgenitals andclaims thathave been reported that theyhaveintroduceda peninto the vagina, under the justificationofseekingrecording objects.The governmentorganizes inworkplacesthe so called Rapid ResponseBrigades(BRR) to suppress evenwith theuse of violencewomendissidents.It is theabsolutegovernment inactionregardingthose involvedinralliesof repudiationagainst the Ladies inWhiteand other womenopposition activists, acts againstthe public order, groupsthat gather topromotehatredagainst opponentsof the government andadvocate forsocialist revolution, to which are addedthe mediawithsmear campaignsagainst these women, who have no opportunityto exercise theirright to reply.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are eight cases that deserve CEDAW's attention:

One day a secret policemen approached Rosa María Rodríguez Gil and demanded that she become
an informant spying on other members of the human rights group of which she is a member. She rejected their offer saying that she would not be
subjected to blackmail. They warned her that her learning disabled son, Josvany Melchor Rodríguez, would pay. Three days later he was arrested on March 19, 2010 and held in custody for nine
months then subjected to a show trial and given a 12 year prison
sentence. Rosa responded by denouncing the blackmail and demanding the immediate release of her innocent son. Two years pass and her son is still unjustly imprisoned and international attention draws some attention to his plight. Early one morning her sister, Dalia Margarita Rodríguez, who is a cancer survivor, gets a
phone call they ask her if she is related to Rosa and they ask Dalia her
son's name. She answered all their questions truthfully and then they tell her to talk to Rosa and to take care of her son or that he would end up
the same way.

Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo and Ofelia Acevedo

Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo: "There, as in Madrid, we have been reminded that the death threats received by my father were made concrete on July 22, 2012 and requested support to investigate his death and the death of my friend Harold Cepero. We left behind a statement being signed by those attending the summit explicitly requesting support for an investigation to clarify what happened. The truth is essential, for justice, as a way for true reconciliation, but also as a warning, because death threats have now extended to all my family and the repression increases against members of the MCL and the entire opposition." Both women are currently in exile as political refugees due to the death threats and harassment from the government.

Sonia Garro

More than a year after her detention the Lady in White, Sonia Garro, is being held at "El Guatao" prison and is regularly receiving death threats. Amnesty International reported that "Lady
in White Sonia Garro Alfonso, and her husband, Ramón Alejandro Muñoz
González, were arrested at their home in Havana [on March 18, 2012]:
around 50 police forced their way into the house and fired rubber
bullets at them. According to her sister, Sonia Garro Alfonso was
wounded in the foot by one of these bullets." In the same document it is
revealed that "Sonia Garro Alfonso was suffering a kidney problem before her arrest that may require surgery. " Because she took part in a march on Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 23rd Avenue in Havana with a makeshift banner that read: "Down
With Racism & Long Live Human Rights" she was detained by
police for seven hours and badly beaten. Sonia Garro Alfonso suffered a fracture of the nasal septumand other injuries reported by the EFE newswire.

Yris Perez Aguilera

Yris Perez , Damarys Moya ,Yanisbel
Valido, Natividad Blanco and Ramona Garcia were beaten and arrested
in
Santa Clara for marching on March 7, 2013. Yris Perez Aguilera had been
beaten so badly that she lost consciousness and had to be admitted to a
hospital. When she regained consciousness despite still being in a bad
state she was discharged on orders of State Security. Due to the
multiple beatings she has received from government agents Yris Perez
Aguilera has developed a cyst on the top of the spine where it meets her
head. She frequently suffers migraines, dizziness
spells and other sharp pains due to the repeated attacks which she has
not been
able to tend to medically. The man who assaulted Yris on March 7, 2013
is Eric Francis Aquino Yera, the same official who, in 2012,
threatened to rape the 5 year old daughter of Damaris Moya- Lazara
Contreras.

Marina Montes Piñón

Marina Montes Piñón, a 60 year old woman and long time opposition
activist, was beaten with a blunt object by regime agents on December 15, 2012 in
Cuba. The end result was three deep wounds in the skull and a hematoma in the right eye. She needed nearly thirty stitches to patch up the wounds.

Berenice Héctor González

Berenice Héctor González, a 15-year old young woman, suffered a knife attack on November 4, 2012 for supporting the women's human rights movement, The Ladies in White.
News of the attack only emerged a month later because State Security
had threatened the mother that her daughter would suffer the
consequences if she made the assault public.

Damaris Moya Portieles and her daughter

Human rights activist and member of the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil
Rights, Damaris Moya Portieles, denounced on
May 3rd 2012 that in addition to having been the victim of a violent arrest
along with other dissidents the previous night, State
Security and political police agents threatened to rape her 5 year old
daughter. According to Portieles, the main culprit of this threat was
the State Security agent Eric Francis Aquino Yera.

Laura Inés Pollán Toledo

Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, one of the founders of the Ladies in White in
March of 2003 and its chief spokeswoman was widely admired inside of
Cuba and internationally. She fell suddenly ill and died within a week on October 14, 2011 in a manner that a Cuban medical doctor described as "painful, tragic and unnecessary." This was just days after the Ladies in White declared themselves a human rights organization dedicated to the
freedom of all political prisoners, not just their loved ones.

Women are dying in Cuba for defending their fundamental human rights using nonviolent means. Will the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) speak for them? Will you?